Advantages of Citrix

[cookie_monster]

Current licensing is approx £120 per licence 'BUT' schools get the enterprise edition for that which costs approx £170 for business, it's really not much of a discount but Citrix don't seem very education friendly. Also the prices have gone up with Xenapp 5 i'm not sure how much yet but i've heard a rumour of 30%.

 

 

Ouch. We just bought 80 thin clients. at a cost of £110 each.

They are 1.6GHz atom with 2GB RAM. they could easily run XP or linux. The projected lifetime is 5yrs.

 

We've only just started with Citrix but we were hoping to get more than 5 years out of our thin clients.

Edited September 10, 2008 by cookie_monster

[Top_Cat]

@localzuk Do you have Citrix at your site?

[localzuk]

@localzuk Do you have Citrix at your site?

 

I'm currently rolling it out, yeah.

[Top_Cat]

We use Citrix right across our site, including in admin. I manage the SIMS database but upgrades are always carried out by the ICT department - there is almost always a problem of some sort! We live with it, but the guy who does it dreads me asking for the next upgrade to be done!! In a previous life (!) I carried out scores of upgrades on ordinary server/PC networks with very few difficulties, therefore I can only assume there must be something about Citrix that doesn't sit comfortably with SIMS. I never get to watch these upgrades, let alone actually carry them out, so therefore Citrix remains a sort of gloomy mystery to me!

 

Not that I'm moaning or anything, but be warned, (sings) 'There may be trouble ahead .....'

[localzuk]

We use Citrix right across our site, including in admin. I manage the SIMS database but upgrades are always carried out by the ICT department - there is almost always a problem of some sort! We live with it, but the guy who does it dreads me asking for the next upgrade to be done!! In a previous life (!) I carried out scores of upgrades on ordinary server/PC networks with very few difficulties, therefore I can only assume there must be something about Citrix that doesn't sit comfortably with SIMS. I never get to watch these upgrades, let alone actually carry them out, so therefore Citrix remains a sort of gloomy mystery to me!

 

Not that I'm moaning or anything, but be warned, (sings) 'There may be trouble ahead .....'

 

We're not rolling it out to admin as yet, just a classroom. 36 machines to start, then if that goes well, another 36 the coming summer. None of our admin machines are due for replacement for another 1 1/2 years, but when they do, I'll be looking at thin clienting them too - as they don't need many resources, so thin client is ideal really.

 

What sort of problems have you had with Citrix and SIMS.net? I can't think of anything that would cause SIMS.net to have problems. I know there can be a few issues with SIMS.net and terminal services if it isn't set up right (IIRC there is something you need to do to make sure all is well) but haven't heard of anything else.

[Top_Cat]

On a day-to-day basis, we have very few problems. Reporting using RTFs can be a bit of an issue because it is never very clear-cut as to where the base templates are held - on a PC workstation this is very straightforward, but sometimes users cannot easily find them on the Citrix network.

 

However, the main problems seem to be during upgrades. I'm never told exactly what goes wrong but I am told that the upgrade hangs on 'Updating SIMS configuration', for example, or that the database 'is corrupted by the upgrade and needs to be restored before re-trying'.

 

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought all you had to do was upgrade in the normal way on the SIMS server then, on the application server launch SIMS to allow the auto-upgrading of the SIMS program files before the rest of the users log in.

 

Perhaps this is an over-simplification of the process, but at this school, Citrix seems to be a black art, understood only by one or two wizards!

[CyberNerd]

one good reason not to buy citrix or XEN is microsoft may squash it soon!

Microsoft to Buy Citrix - Announcement Coming Friday or Monday???

[localzuk]

On a day-to-day basis, we have very few problems. Reporting using RTFs can be a bit of an issue because it is never very clear-cut as to where the base templates are held - on a PC workstation this is very straightforward, but sometimes users cannot easily find them on the Citrix network.

 

So do you publish applications or publish desktops? (ie. terminal services for full desktops). I don't understand this problem, as SIMS.net is just installed into the same spot and templates are there too.

 

However, the main problems seem to be during upgrades. I'm never told exactly what goes wrong but I am told that the upgrade hangs on 'Updating SIMS configuration', for example, or that the database 'is corrupted by the upgrade and needs to be restored before re-trying'.

 

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought all you had to do was upgrade in the normal way on the SIMS server then, on the application server launch SIMS to allow the auto-upgrading of the SIMS program files before the rest of the users log in.

 

Perhaps this is an over-simplification of the process, but at this school, Citrix seems to be a black art, understood only by one or two wizards!

 

Sounds like SIMS.net problems rather than Citrix causing problems. Your definition of how updates work is correct though, the server is updated and then the clients look for updates and update themselves when they start.